Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood

by Donovan Campbell Narrated by David Drummond

Overview

When Donovan Campbell's platoon deployed to Ramadi in the spring of 2004, they believed they'd be spending most of their time building schools, training police, and making friends with the citizens. But shortly after arriving, when Campbell awoke to the chilling cry of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret across the city, he knew they had an altogether different situation on their hands.



For nearly the entire day, Joker-One-the forty-man infantry platoon that Campbell was charged with leading-fought house-to-house to rescue other units, sometimes trading grenades with their enemies from just a few feet away. In the days and months that followed, hundreds of hard-core insurgents launched simultaneous attacks on the Marine forces in Ramadi, their ranks swelled by thousands of local volunteers drawn from the citizens of a city whose primary export was officers in Saddam Hussein's army. By the fall of 2004, nearly half the men in Campbell's platoon had been wounded in some of the fiercest urban fighting since Vietnam; less than a month after they withdrew, the forces in Ramadi were doubled, then tripled.



Although Joker One is set in Iraq, the book's themes-brotherhood, honor, and sacrifice-are universal. Campbell shows us how his Marines' patience, discipline, and love for one another created a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts, and how the essential goodness of these men remains unchanged by all of the pain and the terror surrounding them. His sharp-eyed, evocative, and unflinching account of his deployment is just as impressive as the man himself-a man who chose to enter the military because of his patriotism, sense of privilege, and deep religious faith when most of his Princeton classmates were cashing in their ivy league educations for lucrative careers among the financial elite. The vivid and gripping battle scenes will satisfy fans of military memoirs, but it's Campbell's sense of duty, faith, and love for his men that makes Joker One a truly extraordinary account of a war that has touched us all.

Editorial Reviews

Donovan Campbell was a junior at Princeton University when he decided to apply to Marine Corps Officer Candidate School. His decision "to assume responsibility for something greater than" himself translated eventually into a platoon command position on the rough streets of Ramadi, Iraq. This hazardous assignment taught him things that no Ivy League education could have. His memoir (which borrows its title from his unit's name) reflects the steep learning curve that he experienced in combat and waiting for combat.

Chris Bray

…a harrowing narrative of [Campbell's] time as an infantry officer in Ramadi from March to September of 2004…Campbell is a gifted writer who describes his own marines with deep care and attention.
—The Washington Post

James Glanz

Be advised that Campbell, though he is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Business School, never stops being a Marine, thinking like a Marine or using the jargon and profanity of a Marine, so do not expect much guidance on larger matters like whether the war was justified or well planned. But that is the point: Campbell provides the raw, bullet-by-bullet footage, and it is up to the reader to decide what it all means…a central virtue of Joker One is that the narrative is honest—and remarkably detailed, relying on Campbell's logbooks and diary, as well as his formidable memory—even when the story makes him or the Marines look bad.
—The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Campbell decided as a junior at Princeton that attending Marine Corps Officer Candidate School would look good on his résumé. Three years later, in the spring of 2004, he was in Iraq commanding a platoon known by its radio call sign, "Joker One." Campbell tells its story, and his, in an outstanding narrative of the Iraq War. Joker One counted around 40 dudes: country boys and smalltown jocks; a few Hispanics and a single black. Some were college men with futures; some had pasts they preferred to forget. The battalion was assigned to one of Iraq's worst hot spots: the city of Ramadi, where faceless enemies found shelter among 350,000 Iraqi civilians. Joker One fought from street to street, house to house and ambush to ambush for seven straight months. By the end of the tour, "even the Gunny's hands had started ceaselessly shaking," Campbell writes. Faced with urgent life-and-death decisions, Campbell had learned that "there are no great options... you live with the results and shut up about the whole thing." For all his constant self-questioning, Lt. Campbell brought Joker One home with only one KIA-a record as impressive as his account. (Mar. 17)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Library Journal

Campbell does not come from a military family. Enhancing his résumé served as his sole reason for attending Marine Corp Officer Candidate School between his junior and senior years at Princeton, and he thoroughly hated the ten-week experience. By graduation, however, he recognized a challenge in the marines unavailable to him in corporate life. His book presents his experience as platoon leader of Joker Company in Iraq. From March to September 2004 this company of 120 marines fought insurgents in and around Ar Ramadi in a classic urban counterinsurgency within a city of 350,000 civilians. Outnumbered, outgunned, and lacking heavy weapons and air support, these marines patrolled the city, enduring countless ambushes and suffering many casualties. Through their efforts, Ramadi never fell into insurgents' hands, and the marines retained control of the city's major streets and government institutions. Campbell provides a gritty, down-on-the-street account of hard, house-to-house fighting against a foe that could disappear to attack another day. He also presents the physical and emotional toll that such combat inflicts on individuals. Through it all, Campbell shows that the men of Joker Company lost neither their humanity nor their humor. Highly recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ11/1/08; for a Q&A with Campbell, see p. 78.]
—Stephen L. Hupp

Kirkus Reviews

Chronicling his experiences in Iraq, Campbell movingly portrays his love for the men under his command, and theirs for each other. His debut memoir also depicts the war's effect on the author's faith and hope, shaking the former and shattering the latter as horror after horror befell the Marine platoon that went by the call name Joker One. During a seven-month tour in Ramadi, capital of the Sunni-dominated Anwar province, Lt. Campbell and his company were on hand to witness the critical intensification of hostilities between Coalition forces and the Iraq insurgency in the spring and summer of 2004. The velvet-glove treatment Joker One at first extended to the locals, rather than winning them loyalty and respect, earned the Marines a reputation for being soft. While the Americans mistakenly believed they were merely caretaking the transition to Iraqi rule, the insurgents were arming the masses, threatening heads of household with retaliation against their families if they didn't allow their homes to be used for weapons storage. On the morning of April 6, 2004, in place of the daily call to prayers, Ramadi awoke to the repeated call of "jihad" emanating from loudspeakers on mosques around the city. Campbell and his men soon found themselves in a hellish situation, forced "to make horrible choices, day in and day out, until it seemed like no matter what path we took, we lost." Yet during their baptism by fire Campbell observed and recorded numerous acts of heroism and selflessness among his comrades in arms, a diverse group of young men whose collective strength was greater than the sum of their individual weaknesses. An accessible view of combat on the ground and a valuable supplement tobig-picture histories of the war's first year. Agent: Eve Bridburg/Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency

From the Publisher

"[A] beautiful and harrowing debut…Campbell unspools blow-by-blow accounts of his unit's patrols from street level. The fuzzy radio transmissions, the roadside bombs laid by faceless enemies, the dust-filled, hand-trembling confusion – it all comes dizzyingly alive…..By the time the platoon finally returns home, exhausted, scarred, and with fewer men than they set out with, Campbell's admiration for his men has become contagious. It's only then that you realize that Joker One isn't as much a story of war as it is a story of love. A"—Entertainment Weekly

"Donovan Campbell, first as a Marine and then as a writer, shows us that the dominant emotion in war isn't hatred or anger or fear. It's love. His story stands as a poignant tribute to his men–their courage, their dedication, their skill, and their love for one another, even unto death. This is a deeply moving book."—Nathaniel Fick, author of One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer

"The arrangement known as embedding–the almost complete immersion in the movements and life of a military unit….is seldom available to nonjournalists. But [Joker One] is its literary equivalent….[Joker One] should be read by all those who have ever wondered what conclusions they would have drawn about the Iraq war if they had been dropped into the middle of the conflict."—New York Times Book Review

"Nobody but a soldier knows what war is really like, but the next best thing may be reading Donovan Campbell's Joker One."—Star-Telegram, Ft. Worth

"Takes you into the heart of combat and into the soul of a young Marine lieutenant….Beyond the colorfully described chaotic battle scenes, beyond the noble warriors who populate the book, what sets Joker One apart is its unsparing honesty."—Journal-Sentinel, Milwaukee


"Joker One is the real goods, what Hemingway called 'the true gen.' The classic military story: one platoon leader, the men of his platoon, and the impossibility and urgency of the assignment. The book will sharply take its place in ranks beside Black Hawk Downand Jarhead. If you want to know what American fighting will look like in this century, you need to read Campbell. Like the best stories, military and nonmilitary, it's a story about love, community, and a brotherhood."—David Lipsky, author of Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point

"A gritty, down-on-the-street account of hard, house-to-house fighting against a foe that could disappear to attack another day….Through it all, Campbell shows that the men of Joker Company lost neither their humanity nor their humor….Highly recommended."—Library Journal

"Joker One is the finest small-unit description of a platoon at war in Iraq. Hang on and cheer them on."—Bing West, author of The Strongest Tribe

"Donovan Campbell was a platoon commander in the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment in Anbar in 2004–the unit that had my flank. In Joker One, he tells the story of that hard fight from the ground level better than I thought possible. This is how it was in Ramadi in 2004, before the Surge, before the Awakening, when Iraq fell apart. And this is what it is like to lead men in battle. Read this book if you are going to war, or if you have gone to war, or if you want to know what war is."—Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl (Ret.), "Centurion 3," author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife

"So many "soldier books" emerge from America's wars.  Many are overstated; this one is not.  It is an honest down-in-the-dust-and-rubble look at young Marines." —Stu Weber,author of the bestselling Tender Warrior

"Joker One hits you right in the gut.  This book is boils years of politics and debate down into an extremely harrowing and human story about what it means to be a grunt.  Joker One is heartfelt, thoughtful and exciting depiction of modern warfare that will surely stand the test of time.  Campbell' s story is more than about war; it is about service, family, dedication and leadership.  His voice is powerful, compelling and clear. In Joker One, this young writer emerges as a voice for the millions of us who have served in America's defense since 9-11. Campbell speaks about what is most important in life, and America should be listening. —Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Executive Director of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America, and author of Chasing Ghosts

"Donovan demonstrates, in a very engaging way, truly authentic values based leadership; inspired by faith, anchored in discipline and lived out in true love for his men."—Steve Reinemund, Chairman and CEO, Retired - PepsiCo, Dean of Business and Professor of Leadership and Strategy, Wake Forest University

SEPTEMBER 2009 - AudioFile

This first-person account of the author's experiences commanding a Marine platoon in Iraq is full of human tragedy, hope, camaraderie, and faith. He and his men spent seven months defending Ramadi, a Sunni-dominated city, and never let it fall to the insurgents. Narrator David Drummond has a pleasant voice and reads largely without emotion. His matter-of-fact style works well for most of the narrative, but he uses the same voice for firefights and attacks, which limits the impact of those sections. Drummond is easy to follow, and his excellent diction and pacing make the book interesting. His intonation, though, does not allow us to experience the full force of the author's words. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170686452
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	03/31/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One


I found myself fascinated by the interesting geometric designs of the twisted iron rebar in front of me. For a time, my eyes traced each of the dark, thumb-thick strands where they spewed out of the cinder-block walls like the frozen tentacles of some monster from the myths of antiquity.

I have no idea how long I spent engrossed in contemplation, because time in and around firefights is somewhat fluid, but eventually I tore myself away from profound admiration of the destruction in front of my eyes. It was difficult, this return to a reality that sometimes seemed more like a myth—or maybe a nightmare—but it was necessary, because the problem immediately at hand was all too real. If I ignored it for too long, I might get everyone around me killed.

So I stepped back from the abandoned building' s wall and surveyed the floor around me. Somewhere in the various piles of newly created rubble scattered about the floor were pieces of the rockets that had just ripped through two feet of cinder block to explode inside my observation post (OP). I needed to find at least one of these pieces, preferably the base of the warhead, because this was the first time that my unit had been hit by rockets capable of doing this much damage. If I could find a piece, then we could figure out what kind of rockets these were, estimate what it would take to launch them, and predict how they would be used in the future. We could then effectively plan to thwart them and potentially save several lives, which was important to me because my job description was twofold: 1) save lives and 2) take lives. Not necessarily in that order.

With these considerations in mind, I sifted diligently through the rubble until I found what I was looking for: a smooth black object, just a little larger than a hockey puck, with a half dozen or so holes drilled through it. Though the little puck looked fairly innocuous, I knew from hard-won experience that it was actually a thing of great pain; it was the base of one of the rockets that had just struck us. Without stopping to think, I grabbed the thick circular object as firmly as I could, shrieked manfully, and then dropped it as quickly as I could. Even ten minutes after its firing, this part of the explosive warhead was still hot enough to sear my palm. Important safety lesson: When picking up a newly fired enemy rocket warhead base, allow proper time for cooling or handle it with gloves. I filed that one away with other lessons learned the hard way, right after "RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) that you need to worry about always make two booms" and "No one here is your friend." We now lived in a bizarre world where explosions were so commonplace that we had ways of distinguishing the more from the less harmful and where little tips and tricks about proper expended rocket handling made perfect sense to collate, absorb, and pass on. The absurd had become our baseline.

Ten minutes ago, though, the world was very simple, for it consisted solely of something that seemed like one gigantic explosion. Actually, it was three separate large explosions within half seconds of one another, but it's fairly difficult to make the distinction when you're lying on your back with your ears ringing. However, it's fairly easy to think rapidly and incoherently, which was exactly what I was doing as I lay on my back, wondering whether my hearing would return this time, and, incidentally, what in the hell had just happened to me and my men.

Time, I already knew, would answer the former question without any help from me, but as the lieutenant and the unit leader, it was my job to answer the latter one, and time in this case was working against me. If you're a Marine lieutenant in a firefight, a situation that's probably as good a proxy as any for hell, then it's your job to figure out at least 50 to 70 percent of what is going on around you so that you can make intelligent decisions, which translate into good orders, which lead to focused, effective, and decisive action. This whole process needs to be rapid to be relevant, but if you' re too hasty, then you can lead your men to their deaths, all the while believing that you're leading them to safety. It's not an easy tension to manage on an ongoing basis.

However, it can be done, and to do it well you must have absolutely no concern for your own safety. You can't think of home, you can't miss your wife, and you can' t wonder how it would feel to take a round through the neck. You can only pretend that you're already dead and thus free yourself up to focus on three things: 1) finding and killing the enemy, 2) communicating the situation and resulting actions to adjacent units and higher headquarters, and 3) triaging and treating your wounded. If you love your men, you naturally think about number three first, but if you do you're wrong. The grim logic of combat dictates that numbers one and two take precedence.

After the explosions, I rose, ears still ringing, and grabbed for the radio handset. Once the black handset was pressed firmly against my ear, I pushed the button with my thumb and, as calmly as I could manage, informed headquarters that my eleven men and I had just been hit by several large rockets. There were probably multiple casualties, I said, and maybe some of us were dead, but I didn't know just yet. I'd call back. Headquarters squawked something in return, but, with my hearing still questionable and one of our machine guns firing full bore inside the all-concrete building, I couldn't understand a word, so I told HQ I'd be back in touch when I could hear again. Then I put the handset down and resolutely ignored it until I could sort out what was going on inside the old abandoned hotel that my eleven-man squad and I were using as an observation position.

After five minutes of running helter-skelter through the thick dust that the rockets had kicked up, I found Sergeant Leza, my squad leader, and we conferred. Slowly the pieces of the attack came together to form a coherent picture: The massive explosion, which we assumed to be the rockets, had kicked off the insurgent assault. Seconds after their impact, one enemy from our southwest had fired an RPG at us but had missed, probably because one of my men had shot the insurgent as he took aim.

Simultaneously, several enemies off our southeast flank had sprayed the building with AK-47 fire, and the two Marines covering that sector had returned fire with their M-16s. They were unable to tell whether they had killed anyone. We had also taken some fire from our direct north and south, and the Marines in those positions, including my medium machine gunner, had reciprocated in spades. They, too, were unable to tell whether their return fire had had any effect. For the most part it was all pretty routine, with only two small deviations.

First off, directly across the street from our hotel, a car blazed furiously in an alleyway. I had seen burning cars before, but they were usually the result of either nearby bomb detonations or steady machine gun fire during particularly fierce combat. I had yet to see a burning car accompanied by a simultaneous rocket attack. I pushed the incongruity aside—the more important question was how the enemy had managed to attack us with such powerful rockets, which were almost certainly antitank weapons and definitely not man-portable. Ten minutes later, my first squad, patrolling in from the north, called in with an answer: The backseat of the burning car bore the clear remains of a homemade-rocket launcher, still smoldering inside. Our attackers had simply parked the vehicle in an inconspicuous place next to the gates of a house, hoping that we would lose track of the nondescript vehicle amid the hustle and bustle of the thriving marketplace area below us. When the rest of the assault was ready, a spotter within the crowd had launched the rockets with a cellphone call.

The second small plot twist, however, was that no United States Marines were wounded or killed in this story, a very unusual thing for a Ramadi day in August 2004. In spite of their clever plan and their disciplined execution, our enemies had failed—we hadn' t stopped our mission for even a second. Indeed, we had probably winged at least one of our attackers, although it's sometimes difficult to tell because most people don't go down when you shoot them with our little .223 bullets. So on that day, I believed that God had been watching over us. Up to that point, even with the horrors I had witnessed,

I retained my faith, if only barely. Every time events made me ready to throw in the towel, a small miracle happened—like antitank rockets missing our floor—or I saw something supernaturally beautiful in the actions of one of my Marines, and for one more day, it was enough to keep faith and hope alive.


Now, nearly three years after that August day, those Marines and I have long since parted ways. Our time together in Iraq seems like someone else's story, for there's nothing in America even remotely similar to what we experienced overseas, nothing that reminds us of what we suffered and achieved together. And none of us have really been able to tell that story, not fully, not even to our families, because each small telling takes a personal toll. No one wants to suffer the pain of trying to explain the unexplainable to those who rarely have either the time or the desire to comprehend. So, many of us have simply packed our war away and tried hard to fit into normalcy by ignoring that time in our lives.

But our story is an important one, and I believe that it' s worth telling truthfully and completely no matter what the cost. For seven and a half months, from March to September 2004, my company of 120 Marines battled day in and day out against thousands of enemy fighters in a city that eventually earned the title of Iraq's most dangerous place, a city called Ramadi. Our story has been largely overshadowed by the two battles of Fallujah that bookended our deployment, battles in which the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) brought the full weight of its combat power—jets, tanks, artillery, and so on—to bear on a city populated almost entirely by insurgent fighters. Fallujah I and II have probably been the closest thing to conventional fighting since Baghdad fell, and they're a gripping story: intense, house-to-house combat between clearly defined foes—the Marines on one side, the jihadists on the other—with a negligible civilian population muddying the battlefield.

We, by contrast, fought a much blurrier battle, a classic urban counterinsurgency, a never-ending series of engagements throughout the heart of a teeming city where our faceless enemies blended seamlessly into a surrounding populace of nearly 350,000 civilians. These civilians severely limited the assets we could bring to the fight, negating entirely the artillery and air power that American forces invariably rely upon to win pitched battles. Thus my men and I usually fought on foot, street by street and house by house, using only what we could carry on our backs. Outnumbered and outgunnedin nearly every battle, we walked the streets of Ramadi endlessly, waiting, tensely, for another enemy ambush to kick off. For us there was no end to the mission, no respite from the daily violence—for seven straight months we patrolled without ever having a single day off.

Indeed, we never experienced anything even remotely resembling a normal day, and as I searched my memory and my diary for one to bring the reader into our world, the brief August rocket attack was the best I could come up with—nothing too terrible, just a standard day with a few little twists that made it slightly memorable.

During our entire deployment, I prayed for something other than this standard day, for a respite from the unrelenting pace of combat, but a break never came. Instead, we fought and fought and fought until, on our return, one out of every two of us had been wounded—a casualty rate that, we were told, exceeded that of any other Marine or Army combat unit since Vietnam.

However, our perseverance and our sacrifices paid off. Despite the determined attacks of the insurgents, Ramadi never fell entirely into their hands as had its sister city Fallujah, and we retained control of the key thoroughfares and all the institutions of government until we were relieved by other Marines. Three weeks thereafter, Central Command doubled the U.S. forces in Ramadi, then tripled them. In early 2005, the Marine Corps formally honored our efforts by giving the Leftwich award to my company commander (CO), Captain Chris Bronzi. With this award, the USMC officially stated that it considered Captain Bronzi its best combat company commander (and our company as its best combat company) for all of 2004, a year that included both Fallujah invasions.

Throughout all the fighting, I led a forty-man infantry platoon—onequarter of our company—under the CO's command. Day after unrelenting day bound our platoon tightly together, eventually creating a whole much greater than the sum of its parts, and we grew to love one another fiercely. I knew these men better than my best friends; better, in some ways, than my wife. For what they did and what they suffered, my men deserve to have their story told.

But it's so hard to tell the truth, because the telling means dragging up painful memories, opening doors that you thought you had closed, and revisiting a past you hoped you had put behind you. However, I think that someone needs to do it, and I was the leader, so the responsibility falls to me.


I was neither born into the military nor bred for it—aside from a two-year stint my grandfather did as an Air Force doctor, no one in my family had ever served in the armed forces. Indeed, the thought of joining the service never really occurred to me until my junior year at college, when I decided that the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS), the ten-week selection process that qualifies university students for an officer' s commission, would look good on my résumé.

With this less-than-altruistic motivation to spur me on, I headed down to Quantico, Virginia, to take in the ten weeks of uninterrupted screaming that constitutes OCS. Unsurprisingly, I hated the experience, and on the day I completed the course, I swore internally never, ever to join the Marine Corps. I hadn't done ROTC, and I hadn't accepted a dime from any of the services to help pay for college, so I didn't owe the military a thing. I intended for it to stay that way.

Over the course of my senior year, though, something shifted. Somehow, the Fortune 500 recruiters and the postgraduation salaries lost their luster, and, somewhat to my surprise, I soon found myself casting about for a pursuit that would force me to assume responsibility for something greater than myself, something that would force me to give back, to serve others. Try as I might to avoid them, I kept coming back to the United States Marines. I knew from OCS that if I could make it to the Marine infantry, then I could be a platoon commander and have forty men whose lives would be entirely my responsibility. I also knew that in the infantry I'd be in a place where I could no longer hide behind potential, a place where past academic achievements and family connections were irrelevant, a place where people demanded daily excellence in action because lives hung in the balance. As my final semester of school wound down, I thought of the words one of my sergeant instructors had screamed at me over the summer: "Candidate, the currency in which we trade is human lives. Do you think you can handle that responsibility?"

I didn't know if I could, but I did know that I wanted to try, and I knew that I wanted to learn to lead, which, I soon discovered, simply meant serving others to an increasingly great degree. Surprising everyone in my family (my mother called me crazy), I joined the Corps after graduation, and I foundered at first in the training, but eventually I righted and eventually I got my wish—I made it to an infantry platoon.

So, that's me: an ordinary young man who once made the choice to serve. I wish I could present someone greater to the reader, someone whose exploits and whose fame could automatically make people sit up and pay attention to the story of my men, but I can't, because I'm not that someone. However, to this day I love my Marines with all that I'm capable of, and in spite of my shortcomings I want to do my utmost to help tell their tale.


Though I can't offer myself to the reader, I can offer my men, and I can tell a true story with love and heartfelt emotion from the inside out. And I hope and I pray that whoever reads this story will know my men as I do, and that knowing them, they too might come to love them.

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